A Few Hundred Dollars

How much longer do we have to wait?

The Iranian was starting to get impatient. After being with him for almost two years, I had grown accustomed to his impatience, along with some other virtues of his.

But he was a man amongst men. A pusher of the envelope, not the person who would say no, to anything.

We had been waiting for a couple of hours now. The rain had been pouring down steadily and had forced us to move indoors, into the sanctuary of TD Bank. Now all that remained was confirmation, that the monies had arrived.

So where are we headed after this? I don’t know, what do you have in mind; I wouldn’t mind getting some food for later on, it’s always a good idea. I’m not hungry though. Brain over stomach my friend, that’s the first step. Call the dealer.

Food had become secondary a long time ago. We only ate when it was absolutely necessary. And only in the quantities required to quell the pangs of hunger which visited us. There were other things to be sought, and digested.

The money wasn’t much. 300 dollars wouldn’t go too far. We had to come up with the best possible combination, and quick. The Iranian was fast losing his patience.

Check again yaar. The dude will go to sleep, and then our whole night will be wasted.

Please enter your pin…chequing or saving…account info, balance, deposit, withdrawal…I went through the ritual as always, the money had arrived.

Six crisp 50-dollar bills came our way. Now we had to make a run for it. The goodies were waiting. We ran across campus like men on a mission, a far cry from the wasted out of shape about to die of uppers and downers state we were in.

By the time we reached Tskata’s place, there were no lights on, and it seemed as if everyone had gone to sleep. We were heart broken. The trip couldn’t end like this. We had to wake him up. Simple as that. Repeated calls to his cell went unanswered…to this unique voice mailbox, which had some ludicrous tune as the greeting.

Lets go up to his place and check kya scene hai. I realized now that the Iranian wasn’t about to be put off so easily. He wanted his stuff. And he was going to get it.

Tskata’s door was unlocked, and we let ourselves in. it was a single bed apartment, and was in pretty neat shape too. There was some strange sound coming from the other room, sounded like Cantonese. He was African when I last met him…we opened the door, and Tskata was lying on his bed, wearing only boxers, and completely knocked out. On the table beside him, lay a long slender pipe, with a round glass base, and from what it seemed, a few pieces of opium. There was a Chinese kung fu movie playing on the telly, Tskata had knocked himself out by smoking too much opium…. that was the funniest thing ever. I had told him to call me if he ever came across any, but no, he wanted to check it out himself huh, well that’s how it goes.

We hadn’t come looking for opium. We had only uppers in mind. And specifically only one kind of upper. But seeing the smelly dark chunks of opium brought back a flood of memories of my time back home. I had to have it.

Yo what do we do now? Wake him up of course! Tskata didn’t seem to be in any mood of waking up, but two crisp slaps across his face brought him back to life. Huh, what…who the hell are you, he was having recognition problems, one more tight one, SMACK, yo its us dawg, wake up. Oh man, its you guys, what the hell do you want…come on man, give us the rock, sorry dawg I sold it like two hours ago, you guys hadn’t showed up.

…Sold it two hours ago…I couldn’t believe it, I had told him that we were coming, how could he have sold it? Didn’t he know how badly we needed it? How could he be so un-emphatic, didn’t he know the kind of people we were?

There wasn’t much I could do. The Iranian wanted to do something or the other, but I guess his hands were tied. We had to do with the opiate. The iranian was going crazy, he didn’t want to sleep yet. that was just his over hyped brain tell him lies, i knew that once the opiate kicked in, it was better than valium dormicum and lexotanil put together.

We hadn’t slept in days, and i knew the opiate would knock us out, upon my insistence, we paid a good 240 dollars for a nice fat chunk and made our way out of the building.

I was happy. I was already imagining the first few drags of that sticky icky stuff, the waves of serenity which would follow. The Iranian would be happy too.

He just didn’t know it.